


No Balm in Gilead

by SimplexityJane



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felix is the luckiest man in the galaxy. </p><p>Until he's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Balm in Gilead

Felix is twenty-five, and he’s goddamned lucky, so lucky that everyone forgets his last name. His call sign was a _joke_ between him and Locus, about an old movie that they watched once, before they were ever in The Service. Locus was able to joke then, just like he was, about how that was him, their very own fixer.

Now that they’re in The Service (this immobile wall of honor and dignity and _death_ that’s growing and cracking at the roots every day, dammit), it isn’t a joke anymore. Locus is Locus because he’s the shield, not the sword, because _Felix_ is the sword, the luckiest goddamned man in the galaxy, even if that luck is gonna get him killed. Felix can’t be the kid who saw all the bad stuff and said, “We’ve gotta do something,” just like Locus can’t be the kid who showed Felix old vids on knife throwing, got him the lessons in the first place.

They have to be killers, and they have to be rivals, because if they care _now_ , they’re both dead. They have to let the legend surrounding them become reality, as much as it _sucks_.

Felix is twenty-five, and he knows that legends are really just guys who had no other options.

* * *

Locus is twenty-seven and there’s a war on Chorus.

He doesn’t care about a war on Chorus, or on any other planet, to be honest. He doesn’t _care_ about the war; he cares about the violence.

The Feds are corrupt, but the New Republic is broke. It’s how most new republics are, and that won’t stop being the case even if they _win_ the war. He doesn't know why Felix joined them in the first place, but he did.

So Locus joins the Feds. They’re a bunch of pretentious assholes, and he can imagine what Felix would say if he were here, can have entire conversations in his head with a Felix who doesn’t hate him, who didn’t leave him on a beach on another planet to _die_. He can go hours just sitting still, watching the douchebags trying to run the planet while the richest businessmen pack up their bags and leave. He follows their orders, and a voice in the back of his head mocks all the dickheads in their new, expensive, _useless_ armor. He takes their money, and that feels almost like vindication.

Locus is twenty-seven, and if he had all the money in the world he would still be broken.

* * *

Felix is thirty, and he’s fighting a war that feels like it will never end, on a planet that hates him.

No, seriously, _this planet hates him_. He’s nearly been eaten _three times_ , has somehow been poisoned by not one, not two, but _eight_ _separate plants_ , and he touched the radioactive moss.

He’s never touching anything shiny _again_.

That includes the brand new leader of the New Republic, which is poor but has Morals and Values and Earnest And Terrified Young Recruits (and is more likely to find the _really good weapons_ ). Who is very shiny when she takes off her armor, ears riddled with piercings and tattoos shimmering just under her skin.

She’s beautiful, and if she had a snowball’s chance in hell of living to be thirty-two (she’s thirty-one) Felix would totally try his luck. He’s slept with employers before, and honestly, he likes this girl. She’s tough as nails and bargains him down on _everything_ , and he respects that. He thinks it would be nice, all that colorful skin spread out, instead of hidden under body armor that doesn’t really fit because her predecessor was a man, a good man, who died in the armor she wears every day.

She dies, shot by an assassin who isn’t Locus, thank god.

Felix is thirty, and if he saw Locus right now he’d kill them both.

* * *

Locus is thirty-five, and war had started to bore him when the legendary heroes showed up on this planet.

They’re a bunch of idiots, which will no doubt disappoint Felix, who never did figure out that legends rarely live up to expectations.

They aren’t legends anymore, Locus thinks, watching the General try to manipulate a Freelancer into doing what he wants. (He’s floundering, obviously, but no need to tell him that. He’s already on the edge of suicide or flight, and the other Feds _will_ leave if he leaves.) He and Felix are nightmares, the kinds that they were told as children and had them curled up, assuring each other that no, monsters couldn’t be real.

Locus is thirty-five, and being the monster is as terrifying as not believing they exist.

* * *

Felix is thirty-six, and he’s not lucky at all. He’s not, and _god_ , if he could go back in time just to clock himself for ever thinking he was he would do it, and shoot certain people while he was at it.

Kimball stands over the battlefield, her helmet finally off. She’s not as beautiful as her predecessor, all of twenty-six and with deeper frown lines than _he_ has. There’s blood on her armor, her borrowed armor that she won’t have to wear anymore, because the war is over and they won.

Felix _does not care_. He’s standing over a suit of armor that has two bullet holes in it, both in the chest piece. His hands are shaking in his armor, and he falls to his knees.

He told them that everyone has a price. He had his, and a decade ago he would have been glad that this happened, if only his hands would stop looking like they had blood on them, and he would have taken the nightmares. Even now he thinks about all the destruction Locus caused and he _hates_ him more than he’s ever hated anyone.

He still has to _know_.

He pulls Locus’s helmet off, swallowing the noise in his throat when he sees that dark hair, perfectly regulation. It looks like he could be sleeping.

Tucker asks him if that’s him, and if Felix were a different man he would answer and leave his body to rot.

He isn’t a different man, he’s Felix, the man with the worst luck in the universe, and every second that ticks on makes him more claustrophobic. His fingers scrabble at his helmet, almost choking himself before it falls on the ground.

Grif says, “Holy shit,” and there’s a collective gasp. Felix doesn’t think it’s the hair, as colorful and non-regulation as it is, or the long scar on his neck, or that Felix is crying. They _know_ why Felix is crying. They can see how, apart from scars and hair style, he and Locus are like copies of each other. ( _My little mirror boys,_ Mom said, watching Felix write with his left hand and Locus his right, constantly bumping into each other.)

Felix is thirty-six, and his brother is dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Um, I'm sorry. I honestly did not know I was writing about twins until 3/4 of the way through. Now it's my forever headcanon.
> 
> Locus is the character death.


End file.
